Finances are strong.
• Jobline has been active – brought in revenue and means the job market is picking up.
• Paraprofessional Forum brought in some money.
• Membership is strong at 882 members.
The association has migrated from a physical server in Radford to a cloud server, Bluehost.
VLA Legislative Day was May 8th. 11 VLA members met with 9 congressmen. They pushed the importance of LSTA funding and reminded them that librarians are also teachers when they are writing legislation.
182 people participated in the VLA Paraprofessional Forum in May. A survey was made about changing the name, 76% favored making a change. The change is prompted by a change in the demographics of those attending the annual forum; they are not just paraprofessionals, there are others involved with the library, i.e. HR professionals, IT staff, branch librarians, etc.
VLA Annual Conference will be held at the Doubletree by Hilton-Williamsburg September 25-27. The preliminary program will be posted on VLA’s web site after July 4. VALL has a program developed by UVA law librarians, Ben Doherty and Leslie Ashbrook. They will unveil videos designed to help the public understand common legal issues.
VA College & Research Libraries will have a program to discuss the 24/7 library. The discussions will be held at Hampden-Sydney and Washington & Lee.
The Membership Committee surveyed non-renewing members. In some cases this prompted renewal. They also received some good feedback.
Cindy Church from the Library of Virginia reported they have contracted with an architect for a study on repurposing their public spaces. Zinio, a distribution system for digital magazines, is now available for public libraries through the Library of Virginia. Note: I tried it from Richmond Public Library’s web site; it is like reading the print magazine.
The Scholarship Committee is soliciting gift baskets from libraries and VLA committees to be raffled off at VLA to benefit the Scholarship fund. Should VALL contribute one?
